Oct 9, 2014

The battle to slim down the weight of gaming notebooks to the maximum has been intensifying in recent times. Back at Computex, Gigabyte introduced the Auros X3 which was touted the world’s most powerful and lightest gaming laptop in its class.

The laptop weighed 4.12 lbs / 1.8 kg so it was a tad lighter than the Razer Blade with its 4.47 lbs / 2.02. But since the advent of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M / 970M GPUs, most gaming solution manufacturers have announced updated models or completely new iterations based on the new architecture. So Auros is following the trend with the launch of the X7 Pro gaming notebook which comes equipped with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M.

Auros X7 Pro offers SLI options

While this is not the top-of-line GPU of the lineup, Auros is offering the laptop in SLI configuration. This dual-graphic card set-up will apparently be able to provide 30% performance improvements and substantial drop in power consumption even when compared to the GeForce GTX 980M (as seen at Notebook Check). The X7 Pro follows the tradition of sleek gaming gear and is quite portable by itself. The lappy is 3 kg / 6.6 lbs while its dimensions are 428 x 305 x 22.9 mm / 16.8 x 12 x 0.9 inches. The laptop will ship out with a spacious 17.3-inch IPS display with 1080p and Auros hasn’t said anything about a QHD option (sadly). However, the laptop can output up to three monitors at the same time thanks to the NVIDIA Surround technology.

Inside rests a 4th-gen Intel Core i7-4870HQ processor fitted with up to 8GB of RAM. In the storage department, there are four slots reserved to accommodate three mSATA up to 512GB and one 2.5-inch SATA III. As for connectivity, the laptop offers Killer LAN, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, three USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, HDMI, mini-Display Port, surround port, d-sub, SD card reader, mic-in and SPDIF. The press release does leave out some interesting details, like for example, how long the battery lasts. Given that NVIDIA’s new GPUs are designed to offer more hours of gaming on the go, future users of the new Auros laptop should be seeing improved times, but this remains to be seen as the laptop makes its way to customers.

The Auros X7 Pro is expected to arrive towards the end of the month with a price tag of $2,599 / €2,040. Sadly, the Auros laptop doesn’t offer advanced options such as a 4K display with 3,840 x 2,160 pixels or up to 32GB of RAM onboard. If you like these options, you’d best reorient yourself toward other products such as the Eurocom M5 Pro.